page_title: Chester Rows
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Chester Rows / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: Part of Watergate Row, Chester At first floor level in several of Chester's streets, the Rows are a unique and picturesque asset to the city. Watergate Street is on the left hand side here, and Katie's Tearooms are on the right. The Watergate Gallery is at the end of this section where the steep steps drop down to Crook Street. The low beam is genuine and very solid, ignore the warning at your peril.
context_page_description: Chester Rows consist of covered walkways at the first floor behind which are entrances to shops and other premises. At street level is another set of shops and other premises, many of which are entered by going down a few steps. The Rows, found in each of the four main streets of the city of Chester, Cheshire, England, are unique.
  Dating from the medieval era, the Rows may have been built on top of rubble remaining from the ruins of Roman buildings, but their origin is still subject to speculation. In some places the continuity of the Rows has been blocked by enclosure or by new buildings, but in others modern buildings have retained the Rows in their designs. Undercrofts or "crypts" were constructed beneath the buildings in the Rows. The undercrofts were in stone while most of the buildings in the Rows were in timber.
  Today about 20 of the stone undercrofts still exist, but at the level of the Rows very little medieval fabric remains. Many of the buildings containing portions of the Rows are listed and some are recorded in the English Heritage Archive.
context_section_description: Rows were built in the four main streets leading from Chester Cross, each of which originated during the settlement's early development.  In the Roman period the main street, now Watergate Street and Eastgate Street, lay on an east-west axis.  It was joined at what is now Chester Cross by the main road from the south, present-day Bridge Street.  During the Saxon period a road to the north was added, now called Northgate Street.  Dendrochronological evidence shows that the Rows go back as far as the 13th century, but it is unlikely that they originated before 1200. The first record of the Rows appears in 1293, although it is uncertain whether it refers to a Row as it would be recognised today.  The "earliest unambiguous instance" of the use of the term for an elevated walkway is in 1356.
  Because the Chester Rows are unique and their precise origins are unknown, they have been the subject of speculation.  Chester has suffered from a series of fires. In 1278 the fire was so severe that almost the entire town within the walls was destroyed.  It has been suggested that following this fire, the owners were ordered to make their ground floors fireproof, leading to the stone-lined undercrofts.  From this, the suggestion has been made that there was "a general undertaking by the citizens of Chester ... to improve the commercial potential of their property by providing two-level access for customers".
  Daniel Defoe, writing around 1724 in A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, describes the Rows of Chester as “long galleries, up one pair of stairs, which run along the side of the streets, before all the houses, though joined to them, and is pretended, they are to keep the people dry in walking along. This they do effectually, but then they...make the shops themselves dark, and the way in them is dark, dirty, and uneven.”
  The 19th-century writer George Borrow makes the following claim in his book Wild Wales, published in 1862: "All the best shops in Chester are to be found in the rows. These rows, which you ascend by stairs up narrow passages, were originally built for the security of the wares of the principal merchants against the Welsh. Should the mountaineers break into the town, as they frequently did, they might rifle some of the common shops, where their booty would be slight, but those which contained the most costly articles would be beyond their reach; for at the first alarm the doors of the passages, up which the stairs led, would be closed, and all access to the upper streets cut off, from the open arches of which missiles of all kinds, kept ready for such occasions, could be discharged upon the intruders, who would soon be glad to beat a retreat."
  Another theory links the Rows with the debris left from the Roman occupation of Chester.  The rubble from the Roman buildings which had fallen into ruin was piled up alongside the streets. It is suggested that in the medieval period buildings were constructed along the top of this debris.  The buildings were set back from the street, a footpath passed in front of them, and wheeled vehicles passed along the street below. In time, the properties were improved and, possibly during the 13th century, cellars or undercrofts were excavated in the debris beneath them.  When the buildings were further improved, upper stories were built which overlapped the lower storey, providing a covered walkway.  Stalls or shelves were added on the street side of the walkway for the display of goods, and so the system of Rows was developed. In a few places, for example at the corner of Eastgate Street and Northgate Street, another building was constructed between the walkway and the street.  It is thought that, apart from a relatively small number of later buildings, the system of the Rows had reached its full extent by about 1350.
caption: Inside Watergate Street Row, showing premises on the right and space for stalls and the railings overlooking the street on the left
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